How Ukrainians built a successful leather goods business in the US - ForumDaily
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How Ukrainians built a successful leather goods business in the USA

What began as a hobby in a Kiev apartment turned into a successful business in the USA: two Ukrainian families fulfilled the American dream by building a leather accessories company with customers all over the world. According to 2017 firm olpr. Leather Goods Co. in North Carolina completed 11 thousands of orders. "Voice of America" talked with co-founder of the company Pavel Prannik, who spoke about the difficulties on the way to the goals and shared the secrets of success.

The founding team (from left to right): Pavel Prannik, Julia Prannik, Victor Oleksin, Tatyana Ridosh. Photo: personal archive

Leather experiments on the balcony of the 9 floor

In 2014, Victor Aleksin set himself a task: to make high-quality leather shoes. Then he could not even suspect that this would begin his journey to another continent and create a successful family business with clients around the world.

Not finding shoes on the Ukrainian market that would satisfy his personal quality requirements, Victor purchased a hand-held sewing machine and began experimenting on the balcony of his Kiev apartment on the 9 floor. He glued different pieces of leather, watched training videos on the Internet, sewed and ... repaired a machine that was constantly breaking.

In the process, it turned out that in order to make shoes, you need a lot of equipment, work and skill, so the idea came to start with something easy - wallets and other accessories. Victor's sincere admiration for technology and material and constant conversations on this topic interested Pavel Prannik, his sister's husband.

“I can’t say that I was too interested in the technology of producing leather soles, bags or wallets, but I frankly admired how obsessed Victor was with the idea of ​​​​his ideal product,” recalls Pavel. Even then, he had the idea that Victor’s products could be sold.

Due to unfavorable economic conditions, Victor quit his job and had more time for his hobby. Meanwhile, the depreciation of the hryvnia wiped out the online store, which Paul engaged with his wife. The couple had a desire to do business, and at a certain point an idea appeared to promote Victor’s interest and skills.

In July, 2014, Pavel quit his job and completely immersed in a new business. Then the team was formed: Victor and his wife Tatiana were responsible for technical questions, Pavel and his wife Yulia were engaged in sales, marketing and legal issues.

A month later, Pavel convinced Victor to buy a cheap, but complete, sewing machine for leather. It is this event that the team of entrepreneurs considers the beginning of the company.

First business attempts in Ukraine

Victor's purposefulness manifested itself, and already after some time, trial models of business card holders, wallets, bags began to appear. Not everything worked out as desired, but the entrepreneurs tried and believed that they would make their ideal collection of products.

Photo: personal archive

The team sent all its forces to the fairs and social networks just at the time when fairs of goods of Ukrainian manufacturers began to appear in Kiev. Demand grew, and there were few manufacturers of leather accessories, so things were going well. Parallel, without much hope, Pavel registered a shop at Etsy, a site specializing in handicrafts. Unexpectedly, at the end of 2014, entrepreneurs began to receive orders from Etsy.

“It was still strange to me then why Americans bought products from Ukraine and were willing to wait so long for them to arrive,” says Pavel. “As it turned out, they were not ready to wait: immediately with the first orders, we received questions about why delivery was so long.”

Motorcycle bag. Photo: personal archive

 

Customer complaints and the fact that the leather passport cover was sold on Etsy three times more expensive than at fairs in Kiev, forced Paul to think about what can be done to deliver goods faster. And when in February 2015, the year Paul and Victor got the opportunity to go to the USA, the men decided to take a chance. Paul explains:

“The calculation was simple: we will try to sell our products on Etsy from the United States with a minimum delivery time, and if everything works out, we will unwind the store, if not, we will return back to Kiev.

Photo: personal archive

It was an incredible adventure, because men did not know whether they could start a business in a foreign country.

“We were losing what we had already done in Ukraine, not knowing what we would get in return in the United States,” notes Pavel. He’s not sure if he would do something like this again, but thanks to their courage, the men managed to do the incredible.

American dream with ... workshop in the living room

In the USA, the men and Pavel's daughter Justina settled with Victor's parents in the town of Mooresville, North Carolina. Pavel brought a computer with him, and Victor brought a suitcase full of tools. The sewing machine arrived in the mail a month later - it was cracked, and Victor repaired it.

“It’s still cracked,” says Pavel, “and oil is leaking from it, but every time I look at it, I laugh because half of our products are sewn on it.”

Sewing machine, purchased in Ukraine, where most of the products are sewn. Photo: personal archive

The American Dream began in the living room of Victor's parents' apartment, which served as a workshop during the day and a bedroom at night.

“In fact, everything was more complicated than we could have imagined,” recalls Pavel. One of the difficult tasks was finding leather suppliers. Those that men did find set exorbitant prices. Eventually the materials were found in Horween tannery - a famous American leather tannery, one of the oldest in the USA and the only one now in Chicago, founded in 1905 by Kyivian resident Isadore Horowitz.

Pavel recalls the first purchase of the skin:

“In order to keep the cost down, we had to choose one type of leather and only one color per 100 square feet. We suffered for a long time because we couldn’t choose and didn’t know what would come. Then this order was for $9,3, and in 1000 we purchased leather from them for $2017.”

The American dream began with a workshop-office in the living room. Photo: personal archive

Sales in the Etsy then gradually increased and gave entrepreneurs hope for the best:

“We worked with Victor from morning to night, without leaving the apartment: I posted product descriptions online and communicated with clients, and Victor created new products. In the latter, the clients themselves helped us: we tried to fulfill all their whims - and as a result, our bestsellers were born.”

The decision to stay in the US and a lease on 125 000 dollars

So half a year passed, their wives came to Paul and Victor. At the same time, the question arose of what to do next. The family council decided to stay in the United States, but to do everything as required by US law.

“At this moment, perhaps the most difficult period of our stay in the USA began,” shares Pavel. “We didn’t know if we needed it yet, but it took an incredible amount of resources to do it right.”

The team decided to request a business visa from the US government. Having no confidence that their request will be satisfied, entrepreneurs began to make investments in order to show their intention to run their own business in the USA.

The next difficult task was choosing an office for the company, which involved constant and long-term expenses. Finally, a room was found in an old cotton factory. Signing a lease for a total of $125 over 000 years was the most difficult moment for Pavel in the entire history of their business - the figure scared him very much.

Photo: personal archive

After that, we purchased equipment that was necessary for doing business in the United States. In case of refusal of a visa, he would have to leave and return to Ukraine. Fortunately, this did not happen:

“The route of obtaining a business visa is not very popular if you do not have enough money in your account. But we didn’t have them,” explains Pavel. “That’s why even our lawyers were surprised that we received an affirmative answer.” But we did an incredible job for this.”

The beginning of the future

By the beginning of 2016, entrepreneurs entered the new premises, where they are still working. On the square 220 square meters is located and the office and workshop. Business is growing, and now this room is already becoming insufficient.

Manufacturing company in Mursvili, North Carolina. Photo: personal archive

Victor and three other people work in the production. Until recently, his wife also helped him. Victor and his sister Julia develop product designs, and sometimes they all think over new ideas. Julia and Pavel are responsible for marketing, customer relations and legal issues. There are also two workers in Ukraine who help respond to customer requests. Since labor is very expensive in the US, entrepreneurs try to do all the work as independently as possible.

The product range includes notebooks, bags, backpacks, aprons, accessories for technology and travel, cases for glasses, belts, bracelets, stationery, cat collars and more. The products are made by hand using machinery at some stages of production. The best-selling items are notebooks, especially through corporate orders, when the customer company’s logo is applied to the products.

“In the beginning, we tried to increase the range and add as many goods as possible to Etsy“, says Pavel, “and then they looked at what went worse and what went better, and worked and improved on what sold better. Now we have practically nothing ready: when an order arrives, we make it in 1-2 days.”

In 2016, entrepreneurs joined Amazon Handmade, an alternative platform for selling hand-made products. It was just launched, and the Ukrainians were lucky to be the first to sell there.

"From month to month sales on Amazon grew and soon overtook Etsy. Now Amazon remains our sales leader,” emphasizes Pavel.

Victor Aleksin at work. Photo: personal archive

The secret of success

According to businessmen, they owe their success to personalized orders: the client can choose the color of the material and the thread, and also ask for embossing initials / names or engraving the logo, which ensures the uniqueness of the product.

“From the very beginning we had many such requests, to which we happily responded,” says Pavel. “This type of work requires a lot of time spent corresponding with the customer, but as a result the customer is willing to pay much more for his special order.”

The main market for which the company operates is the USA and Canada, but orders come from all continents. Entrepreneurs are proud of their small and big successes:

“Today for the first time we sent an order to Mauritania. We are very pleased that people appreciate what we do and we get a positive result from our efforts. Apparently, this makes us work from morning to night, seven days a week ... In the era of fast Chinese things, it is sometimes very difficult to compete with giant factories that produce leather goods, and we thank all our customers who are in an incredibly rich stream of choice to turn to We value our quality and uniqueness. This gives us the power to create our ideal product in the future. ”

Those who have an idea of ​​their own business, Ukrainians are advised to start small and constantly improve.

“When I now look at photographs of our first products,” admits Pavel, “I understand: they have a primitive appearance, but, fortunately, this did not stop us then from acting and moving forward.”

Another important success factor for Pavel is having a team:

“It so happens that Victor thinks entirely about production, and I, in turn, think about sales and marketing. Of course, we have disputes, but in general this makes it possible to achieve a better result.”

The entrepreneurs plan to open a physical store in Charlotte, North Carolina, this year. Since their whole adventure began with the desire to create the perfect shoe, entrepreneurs still joke that shoes are what they must someday come up with.

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